Federal funding for school security?

While the trend is likely to change in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, federal funding for school security has been on a downward slide for several years.

The trend would only worsen if across-the-board federal budget cuts are imposed at the end of the year should efforts to avoid the "fiscal cliff" fail.

"We've been on this roller coaster of federal support in funding programs affecting school safety since the Columbine attack in 1999," said Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm. (The April 20, 1999, shootings by two seniors at the Colorado high school shooting left 13 dead.)

"Grants that supported police in schools, security equipment, counselors, even emergency planning, have all pretty much dried up in the past year or two after being in decline for five or six years as the focus has been on test scores and education reform," Trump added.

In the National Rifle Association's first public comments since the Dec. 14 school shootings in Newtown, Conn., the organization's executive vice president called for an armed guard in all schools -- which would add to school security costs.

"What if Adam Lanza had been confronted by qualified armed security?" Wayne LaPierre asked rhetorically during a press conference Friday. Lanza, the gunman, fatally shot himself after killing his mother at home and then 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hill.

School officials nationwide have been struggling to maintain safety efforts in the face of recession-driven budget cuts -- along with the loss of grant support from the federal and many state governments. Despite the funding cuts, school killings in recent years have dropped.

A 2010 survey by the Center for School Preparedness at the U.S. Department of Education found that budget cuts had forced many administrators to reduce staff and programs and restructure security departments.

Many schools reported widespread layoffs and cuts of school resource officers (police officers and deputies regularly assigned to one or more specific schools), along with temporary furloughs. Some school police agencies said cuts had been so severe that they had "ceased to operate."

Among the federal cutbacks:

-- The Education Department's Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools program, which distributed $20 million to $30 million a year to assist schools in developing emergency plans, ended last year.

"The great thing about this program was that it forced school administrators to sit down and coordinate with first responders, the mental health community and others and ensure those conversations continued over time," Trump said.

-- The Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant program, run through the Department of Health and Human Service's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, was cut sharply in the 2011 budget. Only the 89 school districts that already had received grants to help make schools more secure and drug-free were eligible for small renewal grants.

-- Department of Justice programs that had distributed nearly $1 billion over 12 years to hire police officers for schools, install metal detectors, security cameras and other countermeasures, mostly ended in September 2011. Those included the Secure Our Schools and School Safety Initiative programs, which had been sustained mostly through congressional earmarks that were banned after 2010.

-- The Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in Schools program distributed some $811 million to communities to hire school resource officers before the program was changed to a broader effort in 2005 that allowed departments to apply for money for other types of community policing efforts.

Schools still can apply under the COPS program, but funding has dropped by nearly half, from $792 million in 2010 to $485 million in 2011, and again by nearly half, to $199 million, in the fiscal year that ended in September.

"These are really not educational issues, but public-safety issues,'' Trump said. "The school community largely knows what it needs to do for prevention and preparedness to protect the kids put in their care five days a week. They just don't always have the resources they need to make it happen."

Earlier this week, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., announced she was introducing legislation to beef up the COPS in Schools program, increasing authorization for school-only spending to $50 million a year, and reducing local matching shares, among other steps. "The slaughter of innocents must stop," Boxer said.

At the same time, the looming threat of program cuts mandated for deficit reduction next year is projected to have a sharp impact on school, mental health and public-safety programs. Although the expected 8.2 percent reductions in theory could affect everything from COPS grants to reductions in the number of federal agents, the impact is likely to be uneven.

For instance, despite rumors among gun buyers, it's likely that the more than 1,000 federal agents and contractors who run the system to conduct criminal background checks on would-be purchasers will remain at or near full strength.

Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this week said the Justice Department would be able to maintain public safety even if sequestration cuts occur, noting that he has flexibility to shift funds within the department.

On the other hand, money for mental health services may be in double jeopardy, because cuts from the Medicaid program -- which supports more than 60 percent of the public mental-health system -- have been part of discussions between the White House and congressional leaders on avoiding across-the-board cuts.

Advocacy groups say additional reductions would further limit coverage and access to providers around the country, further harming a system that already is estimated to miss half of all Americans with mental health problems.